Benefits of Finding The Tech-Business Zone, The

NJBIZ, Aug 8, 2005 by Daks, Martin C

The state hopes that a mix of commerce, academics and financing will lead to successful companies and new jobs

IN MID-MAY Provid Pharmaceuticals, a 3-year old drug-discovery company, moved its offices from a Rutgers business incubator in Piscataway to another incubator in North Brunswick. The company was drawn to the new location-part of a state-designated Innovation Zone-by a package of incentives that include fast-tracked access to low-cost financing and the chance to work closely with faculty and researchers from Rutgers.

The New Jersey Economic Development Authority (EDA) sees Innovation Zones as a good way to ensure that high-tech companies stick around and create new jobs. For entrepreneurs like Provid CEO Gary Olson, they represent a good business proposition.

"Since our company was founded in April 2001 Rutgers was a key element," says Olson, speaking from his new office in The Technology Centre of New Jersey, a part of the zone that lies adjacent to Rutgers University. "In our current location Provid has 5,000 sq. ft. of office and laboratory space in which to work. And we're right next to the campus' Commercialization Center, which gives us access to advanced chemical research equipment provided by the university and the EDA."

The Commercialization Center for Innovative Technologies, which predates the Innovation Zone concept by about two years, was an early state effort to attract and retain young biotechs and other high-tech companies by providing low-cost laboratory space and specialized facilities.

Today, the Commercialization Center and the Technology Centre are part of the Greater New Brunswick Innovation Zone, one of three such areas-the other two are centered in Newark and Camden-that former Governor James E. McGreevey established by executive order in September 2004. In the order he noted a need to "enhance the transfer of technology from the academic environment to commercialization in the marketplace," and to encourage technological and life-science entrepreneurial efforts.

"Innovation Zones were selected to promote the development of technology clusters in proximity to public research universities and medical research facilities," says Caren S. Franzini, CEO of the EDA. "That's why the Camden, Newark and the Greater New Brunswick areas were selected."

She adds that the goal of the Innovation Zones is to "create a technology community where people live, work and complete research that will generate new opportunities for economic development and job growth that will benefit the state." As part of the effort, the EDA is working with local businesses; municipalities; the New Jersey Commission on Science & Technology; other state agencies; and the state's three research universities: Rutgers, the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey and the New Jersey Institute of Technology.

"The Innovation Zones are designed to create clusters of companies to help develop knowledge and other synergies," says Michael Wiley, who was recently appointed as the zones' project officer. He's responsible for coordinating activity among the three areas. "Right now, the Greater New Brunswick zone is furthest along, but companies will be able to benefit from being in any of the three zones."

"There are 17 companies in various stages of development located on the Technology Centre of New Jersey campus," says Nicole Royle, an EDA spokeswoman. "There are many more throughout the rest of the zone, which stretches to parts of Franklin Township and Piscataway."

Despite their proximity, the Technology Centre is "separate and distinct" from Rutgers University's campus, Royle says. In fact, Rutgers University is one of the facility's tenants.

The companies there represent a wide range of specialties. For example, Provid, which received a $250,000 grant through the state's Springboard Fund in July 2004, offers research services to companies like Suntory Pharmaceutical Research Laboratories, a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based pharmaceutical company that focuses on cardiovascular and immunological diseases.

Being in the zone offers intangible benefits like easy access to nearby learning institutions and tangible ones that include preferential treatment when it comes to financing requests. Provid CEO Olson, for example, says that as an Innovation Zone tenant his company had priority when it applied for and won a state grant to pay for a post-doctoral research fellowship position.

Other enterprises at the North Brunswick campus include the Wireless Information Networking Laboratory, which focuses on developing wireless networking technology, and the Energy Storage Research Group, a former division of Red Bank-based Telcordia Technologies that is developing high-energy rechargeable batteries for such applications as cell phones, laptops and hybrid cars.

Over in Camden, the zone's centerpiece is a five-story, 100,000-sq.-ft. glass and metal building on the city's waterfront that is scheduled for completion this fall. In Newark, the effort will center on a planned Digital Century Building.